Fallout over loss to Vikings is over the top

Man, you would think the Packers lost the Super Bowl. Apparently Packers’ fans have forgot how hard it actually hurt to lose the Super Bowl after the 1997 season because losing to the Vikings in October is not even close. If it wasn’t for Brett Favre this game would have been just another in long history of disasters in Metrodome, and really, this game was a good game. The Packers have nothing to hang their heads about and their playoff hopes were not dashed Monday night, no matter how hard it was losing to Favre. In fact, I think this will make the Packers stronger.

I know I predicted a Packers’ victory and tried to point out all the reasons the Packers could win the game but in the end I knew it was a tall order. Still, the Packers were in great position to steal one until Donald Lee dropped a pass in the endzone. It’s a whole different game if Lee hangs on. Do the Packers have some problems to correct? You bet. Did they make some bad decisions? No doubt, but this is still a good football team. The Packers have the players they just have to find out if they have the right coach.

Almost like Ron Wolf and Mike Holmgren, Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy have put their careers on the line by sticking with Aaron Rodgers when Favre changed his mind last year. I mean really, if Favre really loved to play the game so much why was it so hard for him to decide to play every year for the last five years? The Packers had to make a decision for the future and did so. Rodgers has done nothing yet to prove it wasn’t the right decision. Favre didn’t win a Super Bowl his first year as a starter, in fact, and I’m counting 1992, it took him five years. I think in all fairness we should give Rodgers two years before we label him a bust.

I believe the Packers this year have been faced with some unexpected circumstances and while I wish the won-loss record was one game better, I can’t complain too bad. The two teams they lost to are a combined 7-1 and should be 8-0 if not for a fluke play. The Packers have not been blown out and even with the struggles on the offensive line have still been able to make big plays. Yes, in my game blog, I was worried against the Rams, but that lasted about three minutes as the Packers dominated in the end.

I am not worried at all right now, the Packers have a favorable schedule with the Lions and Browns the next two games, followed by the Vikings at home, at Tampa Bay and at home against the Cowboys. Anything other than 4-1 during that stretch will be a disappointment. All I know is I’m not throwing in the towel nor am I calling for people to be fired with three-fourths of the season to be played. I mean, who would have thought the Cardinals would have made the Super Bowl last year?

Do the Packers have problems? Yes. Does Aaron Rodgers need to take the next step? Yes. Are these problems correctable? Yes. Have I watched too much Seinfeld? Yes.

Left tackle Chad Clifton will be back for the Lions and I’m hoping the Packers sign Mark Tauscher and get him ready to start at least by the Browns game. He will need a full game I think before facing the Vikings the following week. I don’t want to sound stupid, or any more stupid than I normally am, but I think the return of Tauscher can be a huge lift not only on the line but in the locker room. Now if we just get him back on “Tuesday Night Touchback”.

Come on people, let’s look at what we can do now and worry about the off-season during the off-season. I still think this is a good football team, they just need to find out who they are. Is it a “West Coast Offense” or is it a “Let’s get vertical” offense? Is the defense going to pressure the QB or not? Both sides need to make up their minds and commit to it. I say reel in Rodgers and stick with the short stuff knowing he’ll hit the bomb when it’s there. Move the chains. On defense I think Dom Capers needs to commit to his defense for good or bad and let them loose on the QB. Capers’ fear of Brett Favre, which we saw Packers’ opponents succumb to for 16 years was the main reason the Packers lost Monday night. Time to let them play.

The bye week came at a great time for the Packers, Cliffy will be back, Bigby will back, even some guy named Jackson might be back, so step off the ledge, cut the rope, unload the gun, barf up the pills, we’re not done yet.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 10:51 pm and is filed under Al Davis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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  • packer_bob

    MH,

    Thanks for the link to that Havel audio. Listened to it this morning.

    Both from the announcers and the fans, their were good points made, some comments way over the top and much supposition and unfounded conjecture. Exactly what you would expect after an emotional loss, I guess and well worth listening to.

    Thanks again!

  • packer_bob

    Hey, to whom it may concern, does anyone know if there is a place on the internet where you can watch replays of the games? MH was talking about watching tape, just wondering if there is some place where I could do that online.

  • Matt Hayton

    PB-
    Recorded the game on my DVR…

  • Pete H

    I thought that NFL.com had all the games.

  • http://jlworden1suddenlink.net LarryTex

    Al, lets hope MM reads your posted Lombardi quote of today regarding inovation and change……!

  • packer_bob

    Prediction:

    Al’s next post will be about how the Lion’s won’t be pushovers.

  • http://jlworden1suddenlink.net LarryTex

    Do we want to open this can of worms?
    I see DeMaurice Smith e-mailed Roger Goodell and stated that “sport in America is at its best when it unifies.” To that end I would imagine that he supports the Watkins-Steward proposals.
    Reading the whole e-mail one senses that he meant just the opposite since he is injecting politics into the matter and that was his prime purpose for entering the fray.

  • http://jlworden1suddenlink.net LarryTex

    Well, didn’t take long for BF to wipe Rush off the NFL front pages.
    I can see we he would want to trash current Packer organization, but to take Wolf, Holmgren, and REGGIE down a peg is really too much!

  • packer_bob

    Favre evidently thinks whatever team he’s currently on is the best he’s ever played on. He made similar comments about the Packer team of 3 years ago that went 8-8. He was somewhat vindicated on his comments 1 year later when they went 13-3 but I still always thought it was big stretch.

    It gets hard to compare guys on a current team to a team 10 or more years in the past. I think it’s natural to overrate the guys you’re currently with, cuz you see them every day. I think his current Viking team is good, and has a better RB than the Packers from the 90′s did, but there isn’t much else to compare imo. Obviously I’m biased, but the current Vikings are good but not great. The Rams sure moved the ball on them yesterday, just kept shooting themselves in the foot.

  • 25 Yrs Pack

    AATP, i thought about running, but now its Monday and I’m back at work , what else is there to do? Tough time for Pack fans. Watching division leaders around the NFL go 5-0, makes you want to think they are all overrated and lucky. They are not. The last comment about the Rams driving the ball and shooting themselves in the foot, dillusional. The only way that happened is if by shooting themselves, you mean the vikings held them down, put the gun in their hand, and made the rams squeeze the trigger with their own finger. It’s simple, good teams make plays happen by getting themselves or the other team in the right positions for the “foot shootings” to occur. Pack now will have MT on one end, hopefully a healthy CC on the other. You take our 2 best linemen left, put them at gaurd, fill in the center. Teach one of our 10 fullbacks to block, not go out for dump routes (especially when you send tight ends on go routes or downthe seam!). AR hopefully now has 1.5-2 extra seconds, or the holes for Grant are open for .4-1.0 seconds extra which should be enough. Since it now seems AR only looks for the deep ball or 4th or 5ht checkdown which is not a first down, he can hit the 2nd or 3rd option, or get outside to tackles (good point brought up) to throw it away. We obviously will be bringing more pressure, Kampan needs to do the only thing he has ever done, rush the QB. Send in the safety as well since they cant cover receivers anyway. Let AL and Wood play their bump and run, AL may be old, but both can play lockdown for 3-4 seconds not 5-7.(maybe not on the leagues very top receivers, but majority of the time) Playing wood in zone is like puting Kampan back in coverage, your not utilzing their greatest skills. QBs make quick and dumb throws when theirs pressure (seems obvious, except to our coaches), which is when Wood takes it to the house, my favorite play.

  • Matt Hayton

    WOOT! WOOT! Way to go TT, Props when props are due, Thank You for signing Tauscher! Hopefully this is a good omen. Crossing my fingers, that Tausch has a little more NFL life left in those legs, we need him big-time! Still have my doubts but for now, optimism is in my heart…here’s to hopin’ Tausch and a healthy Cliffy can solidify that OL. Let’s beat the shit out of the Lions! Go Pack Go!~

  • packer_bob

    My comment about the Rams had to do with the fact that the Rams had tow unforced TO’s inside the their opponents territory. That play where their QB fumbled, he wasn’t even touched and JA scoops it up for about the easiest defensive score he’s ever going to see. Clearly, Minnesota is the better team and I was in no way trying to imply that the Rams were anywhere close to them. Sometimes, that’s what bad teams do, make horrible mistakes. I was just using that to illustrate how there’s no way this defense for Minn. compares to the Packer’s d of the SB years.

    MH,

    I didn’t see where Tausch signed yet, but assuming he has, let’s just hope he has something in the tank. If we don’t get that OL shored up, we are going nowhere.

  • Rocky70

    BF has only 6-8 cohesive sentences that he has been using over & over for the last ten years or so…… One of them is the ever-present, “I don’t have to prove anything to nobody”. ………. Another is “This is the best’es team I ever played on.”…………. Big reason why his pressers are long & boring…….. He really has very little to say. ……… A potential NFL color-man he is not…………

    A note of interest:… The Vikes 5-0 record have come against teams with a combined record of 7-17 with only SF having a winning record (3-2). …………… That’s about to change in their next 3 games………. The Vike’s slide is on the horizon.

  • Rocky70

    Per PFT:

    ” And though the move was expected last week, the Packers wisely waited until the day after their bye, which allowed them to not pay him for a week of no football.

    To create a roster spot for Tauscher, the Packers placed cornerback Will Blackmon on injured reserve. Blackmon tore up his knee during Monday night’s loss to the Vikings.”

  • 25 Yrs Pack

    Point taken PB. The Pack in 1996 were the only TEAM ever to win the super bowl with the #1 Offense, #1 Defense, and #1 Special Teams. The queens certainly are not in the same category as that squad as of now. Except the queens do have the benifit of having a great offensive coordinator and coach, infact, with Holmgren not currently coaching, maybe the most knowledgable person curretnly in the NFL in the west coast, Brett Favre. He learned everything Mike knew about that offense, and coverted it to a Brett Favre West Coast which he is now taking with him everywhere he goes. The vikings coaching staff is being taught the BF West Coast as quickly as possible. It is painful to watch. It is a horrible thing. We have till the end of the month to come up with a Defense against it. Ask Tom Brady how you stop an undefeated offense, you put BF on his ass and see if he can celebrate with facemask full of dirt. Brett did throw into quadrouple coverage for an INT against the Rams, becasue he heard those foot steps a comin,

  • packer_bob

    That’s all I really was getting at 25P, just that the Vikings don’t compare to the SB teams of the pack in the 90′s with the exception of at RB. You raise a good point, Holmgren and the coaching were better too.

    Hell, even at QB the 90′s Pack were better, cuz they had BF in his prime. Still is a dangerous QB to this day as he has shown, but he’s still the older, wiser version not the 3 time consecutive MVP version. I’d take the 90′s Pack DL too. Their secondary was way better than Minnie’s as well.

    BF is just being BF, like he was a few years ago when he said that team was as good or better than the SB Packers. I don’t think he’s intentionally lying, just overrating current talent vs guys he played with over a decade ago now.

  • 25 Yrs Pack

    Put aside the leaving the Pack hate some hold for Mike Holmgren, but he was a hell of a coach. He was so good, that he took BF old backup to the superbowl with the seahawks. Coaching had alot to do with making the 96 team #1 in EVERYTHING that year. Ron Wolf sure picked some good coaches……….

  • Pack4life

    Really I wish someone in a Green Jersey would make Favre spit teeth in 3 weeks. Calvin Johnson may be out next week so no excuses. The Browns are horrible so the Pack should make up some ground. Tauscher is signed but that doesnt solve everything. If Grant isnt heavily leaned on the next to weeks then we will know that McCarthy is all talk. Running game has to be established during the next 2 weeks or it wont be establablished/

  • packer_bob

    I never hated Homgren for leaving. It was just too bad, because wasn’t it only 2 seasons later and Holmgren could have had everything he wanted in GB as Wolf retired. Wish they could have worked it out better than they did.

    He was a hell of a coach, I’d take him back in a heartbeat.

  • Matt Hayton

    Okay. Let’s call a spade, a spade and not put isogesis into every comment favre makes. His comment was this: “I think, physically and from a talent level, this is the best team I’ve ever been on,”

    Here is talking talent, not coaching, not accomplishments. Talent, which is hard to argue, go back look it up and prove to me where the late 90′s teams were more talented than the current Queens.

    And you’ve got to be shittin me if you don’t think their OLine (Hutchinson, McKinnie) and RB’s (AP, Taylor) are considerably better than ours were. I’d say TE is the only position that you could say without question, that the ’96 packers were better than the current vikings. DL is even, both are/were dominant. LB, probably goes to current vikings; secondary is a close call w/butler and co. vs. winfield who is playing lights out.

  • Matt Hayton

    P4L – I’d just be happy if they hit him more than once!

  • packer_bob

    MH,

    I said the current Vikes have the advantage at RB, but I don’t know about anywhere else. You’re right in that’s it all subjective, there’s no way to “prove” anything. I think the current Vikes are a good team, until they prove it against it some stronger competition, I have a hard time saying they are a dominant team or comparing them to a team that went to back to back SB’s and won one.

    They defininitely need to bring some heat, and not just against Favre. Anybody looked up where we rank in sacks for the season? It’s like 22nd or so.

  • 25 Yrs Pack

    I like this can o’ worms, 96 Pack vs 09 Queens on paper. Now dont go throwing the O-Line right to the vikes that easy. Pack had by far a better center in Winters. I also think Taylor and Timmerman were no slowtches, but no hutch, check Queens. Earl Dotson was also a great OT that year, O-Lines are more even than you think. Queens better left side, Pack better middle and right. Middle+Right>Left = check Pack! They did allow dorsey to run for pro bowl numbers remeber (and protected the fallen one). D line check pack! Reggie is better than Allen. Sean Jones is better than Edwards. Williams are even with the Gravedigger and Dotson. 96 Pack control the Line of scrimmage against the current queens, do we even need to discuss skill positions?

  • Rocky70

    The present day Vikes in 2009:…………. After 5 games:

    Defense: 10th in Rush Yds./Game
    18th in Pass Yds./Game
    14th Total in the NFL on defense.

    Even their offense only comes in at 18th in Total/Yards per game…….. All these “great’ numbers against teams with a combined record of 7-17………..

    GB would have never been in the SB in season 1996 with similar stats……… It’s laughable to even compare the two teams….. especially after 5 games.

  • roy jamison

    Packbob, you got my vote for the Nobel Peace Prize. Talk about an award that means nothing anymore! Glad number 4 said the Vikes were the best team he’s ever played with. And that’s before he is in the Super Bowl! More and more ol’ four reminds me of Foghorn Leghorn. Bringing number 65 back only means that TT made big mistakes in the draft. The Cowboys are a crap team and Jerry Jones or Wade Phillips (who was a candidate for the Pack job) might give PackBob a run for his money for the Nobel Peace prize.

  • packer_bob

    Roy,

    Jones and Phillips may not have accomplished much this past year, but my lack of accomplishment is truly mind boggling. Seeing as not accomplishing anything makes one uniquely qualified these days, I believe I am well set up to make a run at next year’s prize.

    To go along with my lack of achievement so far in 2009, I may not even get out of bed until we’re well into 2010. We’ll see if my wife goes along. I think if I call it a sit in (sleep in?)for world peace, I’ll have a chance seeing as she’s a real peacenik.

    I truly appreciate any write in help I can get from you or anyone else on this board. Remember my slogans: “Most people do more before 8 am than Packer Bob does all damn day!” and “Packer Bob: He’s never met a pillow he doesn’t like!”

  • Devil’s Advocate…

    Wow Matt Hayton…………….. I didn’t think there really was much of a comparison but I found it interesting how you jumped in right away to defend the Vikes. Even more surprised at how your blog sounded a bit offended. You sounded more like a Vike fan, than Packer fan. Think you may be on the wrong blog?????

  • Servius

    At the moment I have the Pack going 9-7 just beating teams they’re rated above at the moment. That’s just my personal rating based almost entirely on record.

    DEN,IND,CIN,NO,MIN,NYG,NE,CHI,NYJ,ATL,SEA,BAL,ARI,GB,DAL,PHI,JAC,SD,SF,HOU,PIT,CAR,DET,WAS,CLE,MIA,BUF,OAK,KC,STL,TB,TEN

  • roy jamison

    PackerBob, you are truly a person who deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. A humanitarian such as yourself could use it as a door stopper in the bathroom.
    BTW, Vandermause of the Gazette had a few things to say about TT and they were not good. Failure to find a lineman to back up Cliffy and of course cutting safety Smith smacks of his famous cut of punter Ryan last year. And also from Vandy…
    “The Packers’ belief that they could successfully switch to a new scheme without upgrading the talent looks like flawed thinking at this point. Last year under Bob Sanders, the Packers’ defense ranked a subpar No. 22 in points allowed. After four games under new coordinator Dom Capers, the Packers rank exactly the same.

    Most alarming has been a lack of pressure on the quarterback. The Packers ranked a lowly 25th in defensive sacks last year with 27, or an average of 1.7 per game. So far this year, the Packers have dropped to 26th in sacks at 1.25 per game.”

  • roy jamison

    I am so inspired by awards, I think I’ll come up with a Foghorn Leghorn award. This week’s winner is number 4 decades of the purple people pee-ers.

  • Rocky70

    ” You sounded more like a Vike fan, than Packer fan. Think you may be on the wrong blog????? ”

    No doubt MH is a Vike’s fan…………. Last year he was a Jet’s fan…………… Seems pretty obvious where his loyalties lie………………. Hasn’t got much to do with any team …………. MH could be a Vike’s fan again in 2010 or maybe he’ll just retire as a football fan completely……… LOL.

  • RayL

    Look for a great game this week, Pack shoild destroy the LIONS…

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